The aim of the research project is to find hitherto little-known works by the inmates of Swiss psychiatric clinics in the past as unusual cultural treasures, to describe them, and to make them accessible to research and to the general public by recording them digitally in a catalogue (duly taking the protection of privacy into account).
Not many works from the early twentieth century have survived. The stocks were dramatically depleted in recent years, as depots were cleared, collections and all kinds of odds and ends were thrown out to make room for other projects. This fact lends urgency to the present project.
The works were created in such an unusual social and biographical context that they are of value to the history of art. In order to prevent the rest of the material from disappearing, they are to be inventoried. And they are also to be held in safekeeping in a way that prevents them from being damaged.
The previous project (from 2006 – 2008) dealt with the three-dimensional objects from the Morgenthaler Collection at the Psychiatrie-Museum Bern, which belongs to the university psychiatric services in Bern ("Waldau"), the works by patients in the Rheinau psychiatric centre (in the Alt Rheinau clinic) and the collection of the psychiatric services Aargau (Königsfelden clinic in Brugg).
In a second stage, an inventory will be made of existing collections and depots in Switzerland. A compendium will give an overlook in which of the psychiatric hospitals there still are smaller or larger collections from the period 1850 – 1930 to be found. Such an overlook serves as a base for further research and helps to save collections from being destroyed or lost.
The works are often made of unusual, improvised materials, and only sparsely documented with sources. Consequently they can be fully appreciated only after an exact examination and in the course of practical conservation work. The project is run on an inter-disciplinary basis because the works were produced in a very particular and, above all, highly regimented context, and thus should be developed as first-hand communications and highly specialized contributions to culture from the point of view of history, psychiatric history and the history of art.
A conference at the Kunstmuseum Bern in 2011 will host an interdisciplinary discussion about “art and psychiatry” between sciences and praxis.
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